Tessa Mabel Cole

Name: Tessa Mabel “Mabes” Cole

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Grade: 12th

School: Cochise High School

Hobbies and Interests: Folk guitar, camping, libertarian politics, survivalism, light art, amateur radio.

Appearance: Tessa stands at 5'6" and weighs 155lbs, making her slightly overweight. He naturally fair hair is dyed a dark brown, and hangs in a shaggy, layered style to just past her shoulder blades. Tessa has her hair cut in a messy fringe, and it sits at the same height as her eyebrows, so that they disappear when she raises them. Tessa has a round face, with a slender, upturned nose; full lips; round, blue eyes and somewhat rosy cheeks. She has three silver rings in each helix, and generally favours dark shades of lipstick and copious eyeliner.

Tessa enjoys dark clothing, but tends not to wear a lot of it, due to the Arizona heat. She enjoys wearing heavy boots, and owns nearly a dozen pairs. On the day of her abduction she was wearing a black tank top and denim shorts, and a pair of white Doc Martens with a pattern of black cats on them.

Biography: Tessa Mabel Cole was born in Kingman, the only child of Aaron and Lisa Cole. Aaron works as a consultant on crop health for local farms, and Lisa has recently started working from home as a web designer.

Lisa Cole was very much a helicopter parent when Tessa was growing up. Everything about her lifestyle was carefully monitored: all of her food was precisely nutritionally calibrated, all of her playdates carefully supervised, and all her toys were given with exact developmental goals in mind. There were talking stuffed animals when she was very young, to encourage language development, and building blocks to increase spacial reasoning and awareness. As she grew a little older the toys became more complex, like a toy cash register to teach her about money and counting, and then as she developed further a variety of educational computer games.

When Tessa was growing up Lisa was a fulltime stay-at-home mom, and Aaron too did a lot of his work from home. Tessa's parents were a constant presence, and both of them were kind, attentive and even-tempered. They encouraged her in everything she did, showing pride in her every accomplishment, and understanding whenever she erred. Tessa grew up feeling loved and supported.

Tessa entered school as a confident and social child and made friends easily. She had considerable support and encouragement with all of her school work, and though she wasn't an outstanding student, she did well and never struggled with her work. There was another Tessa in her class, and Tessa Cole was referred to initially as Tessa Mabel, and then simply Mabes. Even at that age Tessa was more engaged with the social aspect of school than she was with the schoolwork. She was an imaginative and curious girl, and her outlets for this were arts and crafts, which she flourished in, and playing elaborate games of pretend with her schoolmates, where they would craft intricate fantastical worlds in their heads.

At this time Tessa's musical tastes began to develop. Her father introduced her to folk music, Tessa fell in love with the stripped-back musical style and the narrative aspect of many of the songs. She started to teach herself to play on her father's old guitar, mostly through using youtube tutorials.

Towards the end of middle school, Tessa became more independent minded. Although she loved her parents, she came to see their care and attention as cloying and annoying, and began to test the limits of what she could get away with. Lisa and Aaron saw this rebellion as natural and inevitable, and tried to be understanding and accepting as she experimented with hair dyes and outlandish fashion choices.

In early high school Tessa began staying out later and later, testing the limits of her curfew. Her parents were liberal and permissive however, and they saw this pushing back against their set limits as perfectly normal and natural. Although Tessa loved her parents, she grew frustrated at her inability to frustrate them, and her efforts to rebel grew more extreme.

Many of Tessa's hobbies around this time centred around her parents, and their interests. Aaron Cole was something of an amateur outdoorsman, and the family would go on numerous camping trips together. Tessa loved the outdoors, though she found the Arizona desert a little dull. Her favourite trips were when the family would head up into Aztec Park, and camp among the trees. This became less and less frequent as she grew older, but Tessa always had fond memories of the place, and when she was old enough to go there by herself she would often make the trips up there alone.

Wanting to strike at the heart of their progressive views, Tessa was drawn into fringe politics. There was a far right, survivalist element to the camping community in Arizona, and Tessa began to associate with it. She frequented libertarian, anti-government forums and read the fears and theories expressed there. Initially this had simply started as an exercise in trying to get a rise out of her parents, but Tessa soon became genuinely invested in the libertarian way of looking at things.

There was an appeal, she thought, to their idea of living as an individual, rather than a part of some greater collective. Tessa wanted to live an authentic life on her own terms, rather than at the whims of society's dictates. She came to agree that the federal government was too large, and represented a threat to citizens' individual liberty. Much of the Arizona survivalist community was concerned about oppression or outright attack from the federal government, and Tessa buys into this theory. She is extremely concerned about military takeover and drone attack, and carefully monitored a number of websites which gave warning about whether any of these events are potentially impending.

Tessa would espouse the views she found on these sites to her parents at any given opportunity. At school she was less forthcoming about her political leanings, but would expand upon them if asked. Her parents were disturbed by this newfound politicization of their daughter, though they convinced themselves it was just a momentary fad, and though they didn't understand it their love and support for their daughter were not shaken. Most of Tessa's schoolmates assumed she was joking whenever she brought up her feelings, and she remained well liked and popular.

Lisa Cole had an interest in buying and modifying items from goodwill, generally furniture. The carpentry and upholstery side of this held little appeal to Tessa, but she found that decorating the pieces connected with her artistic sensibilities, and when there was an electronic aspect to what they were working on, such as an old lamp, she was surprised to find that she had a real affinity for it. Lisa noted this, and for her daughter's 16th birthday she helped her set up a workshop in their garage, where she could play around with electronics. Tessa found she was fascinated by lights, and the effects she could achieve with just a combination of bulbs, shades and blockers. Light fixtures quickly became her artistic medium of choice. Tessa fell in love with light art, and began to see it as her future.

Recently, Tessa has developed an interest in amateur radio after seeing a documentary about ham radio enthusiasts on the discovery channel. The do-it-yourself aspect of these hobbyists appealed to her, and she has taken apart and reassembled a number of sets in her workshop. She currently communicates with several other local survivalists via radio, where they discuss survival plans and theories about the governments intentions.

Tessa does reasonably well at school, and particularly enjoys art and physics, though she struggles with math. She maintains a busy social life, and is active in Cochise's art community. She devotes a lot of time to her hobbies, and although they disapprove of some elements of her personal philosophy, Tessa and her parents remain close.

She has been accepted to Arizona State's School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, where she intends to learn how to make more effective light installations. Her dream is to make art installations for festivals.

Advantages: Tessa is sociable and well liked, which could assist her with forming alliances. She is skilled with electronics and radios, and might be able to utilise these to her advantage, should she get her hands on them. She has camping experience and can take care of herself in the wild for limited periods of time. She has some theoretical survivalist knowledge, though most of it she has never put into practice.

Disadvantages: Tessa has never participated in organized sports. She is neither athletic nor competitive, and is not used to thinking strategically, all of which could put her at a disadvantage. Tessa has had a very sheltered upbringing, and is despite their occasional quarrels is very emotionally reliant on her parents. Being removed from them so completely could make her very emotionally unstable.

Designated Number: Female student no. 057

---

Designated Weapon: M18A1 Claymore Mine with electronic trigger

Conclusion: They say someone is never truly free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. You are without king or God now, G057. Enjoy what freedom you have until your inevitable death. - Abby Soto

'The above biography is as written by frogue. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: frogue

Kills: None

Killed By:  Collar detonated

Collected Weapons: M18A1 Claymore Mine with electronic trigger (assigned weapon)

Allies: 

Enemies: 

Mid-game Evaluation: Tessa awoke in the asylum, and reflected on her own beliefs about what was happening, mostly related to her anti-government conspiracy ideas. She left the asylum for the pub to search for supplies. She was found by Vincenzo/a Gatti, Melanie Beckett, and Cameron Herrig while she was entering. Tessa wasn't inclined to be friendly, and was suspicious of Cameron's injured foot as a ruse or sign of an earlier fight or even kill. Enzo called Tessa out on these suspicions, and the other two tried to play them off. Tessa reluctantly relented and agreed to let them into the pub, and showed off the claymore she intended to use to guard the entrance, which drew more incredulous responses. They reached a rough peace, an agreement for the night, though Melanie elected to leave.

The next morning Tessa roughly offered the other two girls an opportunity to participate in a plan she had for disabling the collars. Neither Enzo nor Cameron found the plan palatable, however, especially for how abrasive Tessa inherently was, and they both chose to depart instead of helping out. Tessa was left alone, and while she tried to deny she was hurt and bothered by that fact to herself she couldn't manage it. In frustration, haunted by memories of her poor social life in school, she threw an ashtray at a nearby camera. This damaged the camera enough that the terrorists saw fit to make an example out of Tessa by detonating her collar

Post-Game Evaluation: 

Memorable Quotes: "I said there're things that've happened that you're not telling us, and what I went on to say is that's your business. I don't trust you, I don't need to. Ain't no need for it to be a big deal: I wouldn't trust half our teachers as far as I could spit them, but I still sit in their classes every day." - Tessa, justifying her accusations against Cameron.

Threads
Below is a list of threads containing Tessa, in chronological order.

V6 Pregame:
 * A Salad of Anger

V6:
 * This is Not a War
 * Call Me Maybe

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Tessa Mabel Cole. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''